Indian democracy is one of its kind. A kind of unique yet managed democracy.
Now the word "Managed" has to meanings. One is a bit simpler and easy to understand. The other is a bit complex and complicated. The country has still retained its "Unity in Diversity" tagline proudly and looks as if it will maintain the same for years to come. The Indian economy has came out of recession and growing at a rate so that it can become the world's second biggest economy. Population of billions of people is sustaining and happy (By the way India comes on 4th rank in world's happiest countries). India is showing signs of development with all the new technologies coming to India; name a brand and its here. Audi, BMW, GM, Toyota, Mittal, Google, Microsoft and all the worlds leading brands. The metro is here, flyovers are here, super fast trains are here, bullet train will be here shortly.
India has taken a great leap in technology sector with its flagship IT sector leading the world, ISRO launching all sort of satellites even for other countries and planning to send a man on moon. DRDO coming up with tejas aircraft, arjun tank, brahmos missile and going on for the worlds biggest power sector deal. Nuclear R&D sector launching the arihant; India's first nuclear sub-marine, designed and built completely in India.
Talk about the common man, there are world class hospitals present with their 24*7 service. All international mutual funds are here to provide high returns on investment. The Nano is here to fulfill the dreams of lakhs to own a car. Suzuki Hayabusa is also here to quench the thirst of power hungry Indians. "Right to Information" is here to empower the common man. It pledges to bring in the transparency and reduce the efforts (and bribe amount) by common man to get the work done. The offices are all inter-connected with vast network of wired and wireless networks. Information is available at finger tips.
These are the things one finds in party manifesto of a political party. They really make one feel that you are witnessing the transformation of a country which was not even independent 70 years ago and is now poised to take over the world. But as every coin has the other side, the growth story also has brought its own challenges.
Looking at the elections statistics, it becomes an evident fact that 50% of the Indians consider voting as a holiday and do not venture out of their houses to cast their vote. Elections campaigns are more of an entertainment than being an informative trip for the voters. The candidates give only promises and they keep on repeating the same year on year. The target for all these elections to lure the rather uneducated and poor class of voters.
Let me quote on incidence here. When there were elections last time in India, one of my roomie happened to ask the house maid whether she voted or not. She happily showed the Ink on finger as the proof of voting. She happily told about the process taught to her and all the women in her colony. The "XYZ" party candidate told all of them how to handle the new machine for voting. The process goes as "Press first button so that red light flashes and a beep sound comes. Then press the button in front of the candidate for whom you have to vote and done..... Your vote is registered." Poor lady. Little did she knew about the machines and voted happily. No prizes for guessing that the first button to so called "turn on" the machine was actually the button to vote for "XYZ" party candidate. The guy won with thumping majority. And now the candidate will serve those people whom he cheated already. Better nothing said about it.
There is much apathy about joining the main stream in so called educated people of India. According to the latest survey of Times, approximately 38% of politicians in India have not even passed 10th standard exam. This is the crowd that decides policies to be followed by Harward, stanford MBA'a and business tycoons. These are the guys that decide who does what and how the hard earned tax amount will be spent. No need to mention about how much will be kept by the Babus themselves.
The same set of people support the government which decides Indian foreign policies, tax structure, defense strategy, education system, law and order management structure, Farming policies, Import / export policies and all those things which affect one's day to day life.
The challenge is to select those people who believe in democracy. Those who do not love to safeguard their vote bank by playing caste politics. The regionalism and minorities are not their weapons to garner sympathy. They do not abuse the talented ones by implementing the reservations everywhere to increase their fan following. The ones who are ready to declare their assets to display the clean character. They do not believe n VVIP culture and running on the roads with their sirened ambassador running at speeds compared to flight.
This can be implemented when the educated ones come to out and vote for the good. They should participate as good citizens to educate others who do not have privileges. The politicos can play around the illiterate but the dream should be to become the worst nightmare for the politicos who are even worthy of calling themselves the Citizen of world's 4th largest economic power. The dream should be to do one simple thing... VOTE. To make the middle finger proud some day.....
Now the word "Managed" has to meanings. One is a bit simpler and easy to understand. The other is a bit complex and complicated. The country has still retained its "Unity in Diversity" tagline proudly and looks as if it will maintain the same for years to come. The Indian economy has came out of recession and growing at a rate so that it can become the world's second biggest economy. Population of billions of people is sustaining and happy (By the way India comes on 4th rank in world's happiest countries). India is showing signs of development with all the new technologies coming to India; name a brand and its here. Audi, BMW, GM, Toyota, Mittal, Google, Microsoft and all the worlds leading brands. The metro is here, flyovers are here, super fast trains are here, bullet train will be here shortly.
India has taken a great leap in technology sector with its flagship IT sector leading the world, ISRO launching all sort of satellites even for other countries and planning to send a man on moon. DRDO coming up with tejas aircraft, arjun tank, brahmos missile and going on for the worlds biggest power sector deal. Nuclear R&D sector launching the arihant; India's first nuclear sub-marine, designed and built completely in India.
Talk about the common man, there are world class hospitals present with their 24*7 service. All international mutual funds are here to provide high returns on investment. The Nano is here to fulfill the dreams of lakhs to own a car. Suzuki Hayabusa is also here to quench the thirst of power hungry Indians. "Right to Information" is here to empower the common man. It pledges to bring in the transparency and reduce the efforts (and bribe amount) by common man to get the work done. The offices are all inter-connected with vast network of wired and wireless networks. Information is available at finger tips.
These are the things one finds in party manifesto of a political party. They really make one feel that you are witnessing the transformation of a country which was not even independent 70 years ago and is now poised to take over the world. But as every coin has the other side, the growth story also has brought its own challenges.
Looking at the elections statistics, it becomes an evident fact that 50% of the Indians consider voting as a holiday and do not venture out of their houses to cast their vote. Elections campaigns are more of an entertainment than being an informative trip for the voters. The candidates give only promises and they keep on repeating the same year on year. The target for all these elections to lure the rather uneducated and poor class of voters.
Let me quote on incidence here. When there were elections last time in India, one of my roomie happened to ask the house maid whether she voted or not. She happily showed the Ink on finger as the proof of voting. She happily told about the process taught to her and all the women in her colony. The "XYZ" party candidate told all of them how to handle the new machine for voting. The process goes as "Press first button so that red light flashes and a beep sound comes. Then press the button in front of the candidate for whom you have to vote and done..... Your vote is registered." Poor lady. Little did she knew about the machines and voted happily. No prizes for guessing that the first button to so called "turn on" the machine was actually the button to vote for "XYZ" party candidate. The guy won with thumping majority. And now the candidate will serve those people whom he cheated already. Better nothing said about it.
There is much apathy about joining the main stream in so called educated people of India. According to the latest survey of Times, approximately 38% of politicians in India have not even passed 10th standard exam. This is the crowd that decides policies to be followed by Harward, stanford MBA'a and business tycoons. These are the guys that decide who does what and how the hard earned tax amount will be spent. No need to mention about how much will be kept by the Babus themselves.
The same set of people support the government which decides Indian foreign policies, tax structure, defense strategy, education system, law and order management structure, Farming policies, Import / export policies and all those things which affect one's day to day life.
The challenge is to select those people who believe in democracy. Those who do not love to safeguard their vote bank by playing caste politics. The regionalism and minorities are not their weapons to garner sympathy. They do not abuse the talented ones by implementing the reservations everywhere to increase their fan following. The ones who are ready to declare their assets to display the clean character. They do not believe n VVIP culture and running on the roads with their sirened ambassador running at speeds compared to flight.
This can be implemented when the educated ones come to out and vote for the good. They should participate as good citizens to educate others who do not have privileges. The politicos can play around the illiterate but the dream should be to become the worst nightmare for the politicos who are even worthy of calling themselves the Citizen of world's 4th largest economic power. The dream should be to do one simple thing... VOTE. To make the middle finger proud some day.....
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